Chris Howell bade farewell to his constant companion for 20 years — tobacco — at the far end of Golden Gate Park overlooking the ocean in July 2003.

“I had a chat with my cigarettes,” the Berkeley resident recalled. “Cigarettes to me were an old friend and it was time to say goodbye.”

Howell, 41, started smoking while an undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley, as part of the city’s “cafe lifestyle,” he said.

He favored Camel Lights, after a meal, with coffee. He smoked a pack a day.

He estimates he has spent $20,000 on cigarettes over his lifetime.

The four or five previous attempts to quit didn’t stick. He tried cold turkey and acupuncture in Asia, and once he paid friends who caught him lighting up. But he always returned to the habit after a few months.

“I considered myself a nicotine addict.”

Then one cold foggy morning while sitting on his front stoop, cigarette and coffee cup in hand, he had “a moment of clarity.”

He didn’t want to be a smoker anymore.

Soon afterward, he visited the health education department at Kaiser Permanante Oakland, where he is a member. One pamphlet describing how to get ready to quit clicked for him.

He set a quit date a month ahead and started a log of his smoking habits, including triggers, number of cigarettes and how he felt while smoking. He came up with a “quit list” detailing reasons.

He attended a weekend smoking cessation class at Kaiser, which focused on the biology of nicotine addiction and quitting strategies, which he said he found helpful. He bought nicotine patches, licorice sticks and hard candy. “I was prepared for my quit date,” he said.

On that appointed day, he simply didn’t smoke. Physically it was fairly painless, he said. “Mentally it was a tougher process,” he added.

The best benefit was that he finally loosened the bonds on a 20-year addiction. “To be free of that mental itch to have a cigarette was a big plus,” he said.

Nearly four years later he still has occasional pangs. A few months ago he was watching “Casablanca,” and seeing Humphrey Bogart coolly light up, wearing a crisp white tuxedo, brought back that familiar urge.

But he wouldn’t pick up the habit again, he said. “I consider cigarettes an old friend that I don’t keep in touch with anymore but occasionally think about.”